I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  ‘Seat free?’

  She looked up. A man – young, twenties – indicated the chair across the table from hers. She nodded and he sat, tumbling his rucksack onto the floor.

  ‘Phew,’ he said, pulling off a navy beanie hat to run a hand across his stubble-short brown hair. ‘Hot in here.’ He nodded at her case. ‘You come a long way?’

  His accent was different from what she’d heard so far – and, thankfully, easier to understand.

  ‘Australia,’ she told him, and he raised his eyebrows and whistled.

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Brisbane, in Queensland.’ No point in naming her tiny town.

  ‘First time in the UK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must be wrecked. How long you been travelling?’

  She had to think. ‘Um … about a day, I think.’

  ‘All alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He planted his feet on the table. Sand-coloured desert boots under blue jeans. ‘Love to go to Oz some day,’ he said. ‘Got plenty of mates over there, but …’ He shrugged, left the sentence unfinished. He leaned back, hands behind his head.

  His jacket was dark brown with a tiny red, white and blue logo at the end of his upraised sleeve. He was sporty, she decided. A runner, or maybe he was into team games. She’d seen people playing cricket in English films, on lawns of impossible green.

  ‘Where you headed?’ he asked then, and she told him Ireland.

  ‘Dublin?’

  ‘No – west. Kerry.’

  ‘Ah. Never been myself. Hear it’s pretty wild.’

  ‘Oh?’ She wondered what kind of wild he meant, but he didn’t elaborate.

  A short silence fell. She hesitated, not wanting to be nosy – but he’d had no qualms about questioning her. ‘Are you English?’ she asked.

  He grinned, the left side of his mouth travelling upwards, causing a dimple to form in his cheek. ‘Would’ve thought that was obvious. I’m from a place called Bath where Jane Austen used to go on her holidays.’ The skin around his brown eyes crinkled when he smiled. He was actually quite good-looking. ‘I’m Mike,’ he said, sticking out his hand.

  ‘Tilly,’ she told him. His hand was warm, his grasp firm. ‘Short for Matilda,’ she added, in answer to his questioning look.

  Same crooked grin. ‘Like waltzing Matilda.’

  She smiled as if she’d never heard it before. ‘Yes, like her.’

  ‘And what do you do when you’re not waltzing?’

  ‘I’m still at school,’ she said, instantly regretting it. She could have said anything, he’d never have known. She could have told him she was a writer, travelling for research.

  ‘So what brings you to Ireland, all on your own?’

  ‘Um … visiting family. What do you do?’

  ‘I work in IT, very soulless. In London, for my sins.’

  She yawned, said sorry around it. ‘I need to stay awake until I get on my coach.’

  ‘You going to Stansted, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took a roll of mints from his pocket and offered her some. He told her he was headed to Luton airport for a flight to Germany. ‘Spending Christmas with my kid brother,’ he said. ‘He lives in Berlin, great city. Great nightlife.’

  She was glad he’d sat near her. He was easy to talk to, and it was passing the time. She was glad of the mints too, in case her breath smelt a bit stale.

  ‘Here,’ he said then. ‘What time’s your coach?’

  ‘Half twelve.’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘You got an hour. Why don’t you stretch out, take a kip? I can watch your stuff, wake you on time. My bus doesn’t leave till one.’

  She hesitated. The thought of closing her eyes, even for a short while, was infinitely tempting – but she’d be entrusting her valuables to a stranger, however nice he seemed.

  ‘Here,’ he went on, standing to peel off his jacket, ‘put this under your head, it’s well padded.’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t—’

  ‘Course you could. Why not?’ He folded it into a cushion-sized square. ‘I was just going to take it off – roasting in here. As long as you don’t have nits, of course.’

  She laughed. ‘I don’t think so.’ He was hardly planning to rob her if he was offering his jacket as a pillow. She took it, feeling suddenly self-conscious at the thought of lying down in his presence.

  He indicated her case, under the table. ‘Why not pop your handbag on top of that? I’ll make sure no one goes near it.’

  She’d thought to keep the bag closer – hug it to her chest as she slept – but it seemed a bit rude not to do as he suggested, like admitting she didn’t trust him. She laid it on the case and stretched out across the three chairs she had at her disposal. They were hard and not very comfortable, but the very act of lying down, of letting her muscles relax and surrender, was wonderful. And his jacket, still warm from his body, made an excellent pillow.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘close your eyes. If you’re not asleep in five minutes I may have to sing you a lullaby – and believe me, you don’t want that.’

  She closed her eyes, smiling. Almost immediately, she felt her surroundings begin to melt away.

  She slept. And when she woke it was hours later, and she was full of pins and needles, and her coach was long gone.

  And so was her companion.

  And so was her handbag.

  WEDNESDAY

  23 DECEMBER

  ‘I’ll go,’ he mumbled – but before he could move Laura shoved back the duvet and slid from the bed, feeling around for her slippers. She wasn’t totally helpless.

  She lifted the wailing Poppy from her cot and left the room, shuffling swiftly past Gladys’s bedroom door. Don’t wake the dragon in her lair: don’t earn another lecture on bringing up baby.

  In the kitchen she plugged in the fan heater and switched on the kettle, her movements automatic even in her sluggish state. She paced the floor while they waited, drawing circles on Poppy’s back and singing one of her songs. ‘Gerry Giraffe forgot how to laugh,’ she sang, ‘till Bertie Bunny was awfully funny.’

  She used to make up songs all the time for the boys when they were small. Not as small as Poppy: while they were babies she’d been no good to them, still torn up with grief after their father’s death. It had been Susan, her stepmother, who’d rocked them to sleep and taken them out in their double buggy while Laura lay in a darkened bedroom or sat in a huddled, weeping mess on the couch. Wanting to die herself, praying for death so she could be with him again.

  Susan, just ten years her senior, who’d weathered eighteen-year-old Laura’s aloofness when she’d had the gall to marry Laura’s father and become her stepmother. Susan, who’d turned into the best friend Laura could have wished for, who’d pulled her through the horror of bereavement. Susan, whom Laura treasured far more than the woman who’d given birth to her.

  ‘Shush,’ she whispered, pouring boiled water into the waiting bottle. ‘Soon be ready now, nearly there.’

  No more breastfeeding, no possibility while she’d been undergoing the chemo. Another loss, the miracle of a little mouth attaching itself to her breast, the small rhythmic tug as it took its sustenance from her. She hadn’t breastfed the boys – she’d been in no state for that – but once she’d mastered the technique she’d delighted in it when the girls were born: she’d loved the whole Mother Nature feel of it. No more, not for her.

  And worst of all, there was a much-diminished chance of her having more babies. It’s not set in stone, was what the oncologist had said when she’d asked. Every woman is different, and it depends on several factors. Your age is on your side, of course, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

  What he didn’t say was Don’t you have enough children already? – but the question was there in the way he closed her file as he spoke, in the way his eyes darted to the pricy-looking watch that poked from beneath his designer shirt cuff.

  And the funny t
hing was that Laura would have agreed with him – a family of five children was plenty big enough, particularly with the last three so close in age – until she was told she might not be able to have more. Now she wanted to fill the house with her babies. She wanted a football team of them.

  She crossed to one of the windows, which was an empty black rectangle at this hour until you stood beside it and tilted your head upwards.

  ‘Look,’ she whispered, pointing. ‘See all the stars, look.’ Millions of them tonight, billions of them jostling for space in the bowl of the sky. She’d hardly seen a star until she moved out of Dublin, had never paid much attention to the night sky. Now, with the nearest street light half a mile away, the sky after dark was a fresh miracle each evening. It was a sight she never grew tired of.

  And on this night it was particularly spectacular, hardly a cloud to be seen, the sting of frost in the air when she’d stuck her head outside before going to bed. Nice for the kids if they got snow for Christmas, but Nell, who’d been born and bred here, had told her that snow was pretty much unheard of on Roone. Last year it had rained solidly from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day.

  When the milk was ready she fed Poppy on the bench beneath the window. ‘The granny in the moon had a pink balloon,’ she sang softly, as Poppy watched her mother’s eyes and sucked placidly on a rubber teat instead of a nipple. ‘She blew it up high and it floated in the sky, she held on tight and they flew through the night, the granny in the moon and her pink balloon.’

  From where she sat she could see the Christmas cards, the dozen or so they’d got so far, piled in a tottery bundle on the dresser next to the bench. She’d had no time to do anything with them. Must get the boys to string them up, or stick them to the wall with dots of Blu-Tack, if they had any Blu-Tack.

  She slid along the bench and took the top card off the bundle, delivered just yesterday. On the front was a painting of a robin perched on a skeletal branch of a snow-covered tree. Bird, branch, snow – just that, the simplest of compositions – but beautifully, perfectly conveyed. The glimpses of black beneath the blue-white dazzle of the snow, the startling flare of orange on the little bird’s breast. Looking at the scene, you could almost smell the pure frozen air.

  She turned to the back and read Detail from Winter’s Morning by Luke Potter. Reproduced with kind permission. She opened the card and scanned again the words beneath the printed greeting. Wishing the happiest of Christmases to our favourite family on Roone, from Luke and Susan.

  The message was in Susan’s writing, like they always were. The line of kisses scattered below were Susan’s, not Luke’s.

  Luke Potter, the famous artist. The household name who had always loved painting more than he loved his only child. Always Luke, never Dad, even when she’d been small.

  In the three years since Laura and the others had moved to Roone, Susan had visited them several times. Luke had come once, for Laura’s wedding to Gavin. He’d felt like a stranger to her as she’d walked up the aisle on his arm. He’d spent one night on the island and caught a morning ferry back, leaving Susan to stay on for another week.

  ‘He is who he is,’ Susan said, and that was pretty much all you could say about him.

  Laura pulled another card from the pile. The front of this one featured a photo of a grinning fat baby wearing a white furry nappy and a Santa hat. ‘Happy Christmas!’ it shouted, in cheerful cartoon lettering that was the same red as the baby’s hat.

  And on the inside, in black pen: Hope you’re well. Love to all, Mother. No kiss, no anything else. Laura’s mother, whom she hadn’t laid eyes on in seven years. Her mother, the highly strung opera singer, who’d stopped screaming at Laura’s father a week after Laura’s twelfth birthday, when she’d run off with her voice coach.

  Love to all: that was a laugh. Her mother had never seen her three youngest grandchildren, had never once set foot on Roone. She’d met the boys on just two occasions, the last time when they were three years old. They wouldn’t know her from Adam if they met her now, but she’d have no problem recognising them, thanks to the photos Laura sent each year of all her children. This is your family, the photos said. These are the children of your only child. Not giving her permission to forget them, not allowing her to ignore them.

  Her mother didn’t know about the cancer. Laura hadn’t seen any good reason to tell her.

  She regarded Poppy, still working on the bottle. ‘Didn’t do so well on the grandparents,’ she murmured. ‘One is gone, and two don’t want to know. You’re down to one, and I’m afraid she’s Gladys.’

  Walter, she often thought, would have made the perfect grandfather. Previous owner of this house, their neighbour when she and the boys had rented Nell’s place on their first trip to Roone, dead over four years now. When she and Gavin had bought the house, several months after his death, she remembered walking through it and feeling sad that she’d never see him about the place again, digging in his vegetable garden or feeding his beloved chickens, or tending his beehives.

  But he came back – or maybe he’d never left. The first time she became aware of him was on a sunny August afternoon, shortly after they’d taken possession of the house and moved in. Gav had gone with the boys to the village for ice-cream, leaving Laura by herself in the little orchard that lay to the side of the house. She was stretched out happily on the grass, bathed in dappled light and marvelling that they’d ended up living on the island she’d fallen in love with, still hardly able to believe that they could call it home now.

  And then out of nowhere she’d felt a stirring, a subtle but definite displacement in the air around her. She sat up and looked about. There was nothing to be seen, nothing had changed – and yet she knew that she was no longer alone. And it came to her that Walter was there. She was quite certain it was him. And she felt no fear, not a bit. How could anyone be afraid of such a kindly old soul?

  After that he turned up every now and again. She’d never see or hear him, but she always sensed when he was around; she’d feel his gentle presence close by. Looking after them, it felt like, making sure no harm came to them in the house he’d lived in all his life – or maybe making sure they didn’t trash it. Either way, for whatever reason, he was there.

  She said it to nobody; she saw no sign that any of the others had had a similar experience. It secretly delighted her, the thought that Walter had singled her out, chosen her as the one to come back to.

  He was there two summers ago, when her twin girls decided to put in an early appearance. In the midst of the almighty panic – Dr Jack on holidays, the midwife otherwise engaged, Gavin in hospital having his appendix out, nobody around but Eve, the young girl who was helping in the B&B at the time, and one of the guests. In the throes of her contractions, as she’d roared and cursed, hardly able to see for pain, Laura had felt Walter’s reassuring presence, had sensed his promise that all would be well, and it was.

  He was gone now though; sometime during the past year she’d realised that he hadn’t been around for several weeks. He’d drifted away quietly, leaving George, his little donkey, and a handful of the hens as their only living links to him. Maybe he was satisfied that they’d settled in and were a proper part of Roone now. Maybe he was happy that he’d left his house in good hands. Probably just as well he couldn’t see the way things were now.

  But she wished he was still around so she could talk to him about how far apart she and Gavin had become. He couldn’t answer but he’d listen – she’d feel him listening. She couldn’t confide in anyone here: Nell was the only one she felt close enough to talk to on that level, but Nell was as much Gavin’s friend as she was Laura’s; it wouldn’t be fair to offload this on her. And she didn’t want to worry Susan, who would surely worry if she knew.

  The feed came to an end, the milky belches issuing soon after. Laura unplugged the fan heater and left the room. By the time they reached the bedroom Poppy was almost asleep again.

  Four twenty-eight, the clock radio to
ld her, as she shucked off her slippers and lay down. With any luck, at least four more hours of sleep. With a little more luck, another two or three hours after that before Gladys decided to get up.

  Gavin stirred, turned towards her. ‘Everything OK?’ he murmured.

  She didn’t bother answering: he knew damn well that everything was patently not OK. She closed her eyes, listening to the rain as it began to pat gently against the windowpanes. No snow this Christmas, that was for sure.

  Her name was Amanda. She was on duty at the airport police desk. She wore a navy trouser suit and a peaked cap, and hanging around her neck was a laminated card with her photo and name on it. She was built to the same generous scale – broad hips, big bust, heavy legs – as Tilly’s maths teacher, Mrs Doherty.

  ‘Could happen to a saint,’ she said, when she heard Tilly’s tearful account of the theft. ‘You’re not the first, sweetheart, and you won’t be the last. Some right scumbags out there – and I’m afraid we get our fair share of them here at Heathrow. Plenty of exhausted travellers, easy pickings.’

  Every word made Tilly feel worse. She’d been an idiot and she’d been had, like so many other idiots before her. He was a total stranger – but because he was good-looking and friendly, she’d trusted him. The second man to make a complete fool of her.

  ‘He gave me this to use as a pillow,’ she said, showing the policewoman the brown jacket, brushing away the tears that were still running down her face. ‘I thought that meant he was OK.’

  Amanda shook her head. ‘He’ll have lifted that from some other poor bugger earlier. They have all the tricks in the book, darling – and, believe you me, we’ve seen them all. I could tell you stories that’d make the hair stand on your head.’

  She led Tilly and her suitcase behind the counter and into a room no bigger than an oversized cupboard. ‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  A tall grey steel filing cabinet took up most of the space in the little room. Tilly leaned her case against the wall and slumped onto it, miserable and exhausted. Kind as Amanda was being, it wasn’t making her feel one iota better.